Meta descriptions
-
Hi,
I have placed meta descriptions in a CMS for a client and afterwards checked with the SeoMoz tool "Page elements" that these are embedded correctly. However when checking the SERP for certain pages Google has "composed" the listing from other content than the meta description. What may be the reason, and how to avoid this?
-
True. I've even seem some instances of anchor text being used in descriptions.
-
Det kan hjelpe
But yeah, if it's a decent description (and you seem to be happy with it) I'd look elsewhere for problems first.
-
Hi, there is a DMOZ listing so I could check that, thanks!
-
hi, I'd have to check with the client, but anyway it is in Norwegian so it would probably not help you much! But, the pages in question are not thin on content and are decisively on-topic.
-
Hi Damien,
Not a double post just because I got there first
Would always encourage people to chime in with their own opinions even if it just confirms what was said.
It can help the asker know if an answer is good advice or not
-
Can you post us the URL or is it confidential? It'd be nice to have a look
-
The code I've suggested will only help if it's pulling the description from DMOZ or the Yahoo Directory. Do you have a listing in either? If so is it the same as what is showing?
Even if you do have a listing it doesn't necessarily mean that's where it's getting it from.
As I say, if you've just made the change, wait for a week or so and if your description is long then make it fit into a normal SERPs length snippet.
However it may be that you can't actually do anything to change Google's mind on what it shows for that search term (you may also find the snippet is different depending on what is searched for).
-
hi, thanks but the search to test this was with using the same keywords used for the title-tag and in the meta description and on-site content, so I'm ruling out lack of relevancy here.
-
hi, thanks! The meta description is based on kw research and on page content so relevancy cannot be the issue. Probably they are not using meta-robots and they need to place the code you suggested...?
-
Sorry for double-post! ha
-
Hey,
If you're description isn't as relevant to the keyword you've used to search for your site then search engines may decide to put something more relevant in the description that it has pulled off the page.
To remedy this try and rewrite your description to be more relevant to your targeted keyword.
Hope this helps
DD
-
First give it at least a week or so to update, it doesn't happen immediately.
But, yeah, Google does that sometimes if it finds a chunk of text it thinks is more relevant to the users' search. I've seen this mostly happen on pages with very little text content (image or video heavy pages say) but sometimes it's just because it doesn't think your description is relevant to your page.
I assume that it's from the page and not your DMOZ or YDIR description (if it is either of those add or to your pages). Very small possibility if you've added a different description to a lot of other directories it's being picked up there.
Not too much you can do about it if none of these. Make sure your description is accurate and if it's more than 150 characters try to bring it in under that.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can I reuse meta description tag on another site?
Hi....lets say i sell widgets and on my site i have redWidgets, blueWidgets and greenWidgets. Each of these widget page's has a meta description tag that seems to help click through. I now have a different site that would like to do a right up about each widget and will dedicate a independent page to each widget. Can i safely provide them with the original meta descriptions (from my original site) for each widget i have on my site to then use on these "right up" pages (as they seem to work well and are informative of the subject matter). I am not sure if this is a seo issue or not. I would think not but would appreciate any input. thank you
On-Page Optimization | | nomad-2023230 -
Why is Google replacing my meta title with the business name on home page?
For all queries that return the home page, Google is not showing my meta title. Instead it replaced it with the official business name which of course makes it harder to rank for key terms since they don't exist now in the meta title. You can see this is you search on "mt view estate planning attorney". The site in question is dureelaw.com and the title showing is "The Law Office of Daniel L. DuRee." View the source and you'll see my meta title. Why is Google substituting it?
On-Page Optimization | | katandmouse0 -
Meta tags - removal
A couple of months ago, I did something that has caused me great angst. My website unique visitors was on a steady growth path for about 3 years. I swapped out my SEO plugin, from all-in-one, to Yoast. I then removed all of my meta tags. My site has about 2000 unique posts. After doing that my unique visitors has been on a steady decline of me loosing traffic at a rate of 5 to 10% of my visits. Any thoughts on the best remediation plan I should use. I put back in the meta tags, but wasn't sure of the SEO plugin switch caused the issue.
On-Page Optimization | | copykatrecipes0 -
I've just manually edited all the page titles and meta descriptions on a site, when will this show in Google results?
I've just manually edited all of the page titles, meta descriptions and optimised the copy on a client's site. I submitted this for a new crawl on Google via Webmaster Tools but when I do a Google search the old versions are still showing. Will it still take a few weeks for the new versions to show even though Google has crawled it via Webmaster?
On-Page Optimization | | aoifep0 -
Meta Title for Category Pages
I am trying to improve the SEO for a few key category pages on my blog. I have two ranking really well so I want to boost them and bring up some others. Can I put two keywords in the meta title? Example: Maternity Deals | Pregnancy Deals Or should I just stick with one? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | dealblogger0 -
How to: Meta description for home page
My latest crawl diagnostic is telling me that my homepage is missing a meta description. I am using wordpress and thesis. How do I add a meta description to my main page? ex www.mynewsite.com Mahalo!
On-Page Optimization | | dealblogger0 -
Why do I need to write meta descriptions?
I work at a marketing firm, and was trying to convince my boss that we need to start writing meta descriptions for all pages on the sites we develop for clients. He asked why this would be necessary since Google automatically pulls a snippet of content, containing the keyword(s) that had been searched, from any page listed in its SERPs. I didn't have an answer for this, and it got me wondering: When does Google actually display the meta descriptions that people write instead of scraped content? And is it really that necessary to write meta descriptions?
On-Page Optimization | | matt-145670 -
Research on what improves CTR on meta data?
Does anyone know of any research done to show what improves CTR for title tags & descriptions in search results? I know general best practices, but am looking for any available studies
On-Page Optimization | | nicole.healthline0